IM Yearbook 2023

IM YEARBOOK
In conversation with Dimitry V. Kochenov and Elena Basheska
“It is all about
European
blood”
The IM Yearbook sits down with Dimitry V. Kochenov
and Elena Basheska to discuss the European
Commission’s views on investment migration.
“It Is All About European
Blood, Baby!” This is the
attention-grabbing and
thought-provoking title of a
new report you just wrote.
Why did you choose this title?
Dimitry Kochenov (DK): It is just a
reflection of reality: The European
Commission makes a clear distinction
between those who acquire European
‘citizenship by blood’ and all others. When
‘blood’ is there, nothing else – such as
residence, place of birth or income – usually
matters, so the links to Europe are presumed
to be there when one can trace the right
ancestry. This means that the whole concept
of citizenship as promoted by the European
Commission is a blood-based status.
I’ll give you an example of citizenship by
decent, which makes the absurdity of this
quite obvious. So, if someone who has lived
in Australia for many generations, suddenly
finds a Greek ancestor, then this is the ‘blood
link’ that counts and that automatically
enables this person to get a Greek passport
and all the rights in the European Union.
Of course, no due diligence and no other
checks other than those about the blood
connection are carried out. However, make
sure all the line is male. Any grandmother
would ruin the construct and you will
need to spend years and/ or a lot of money
to acquire European documents.
Be it as it may, it’s clear that the only
thing that counts is the blood line. This
explains the title, and there is nothing
exaggerated about it. The blood paradigm
is only broken by naturalisations, which
amount to less than 2% of citizenship
acquisitions around the world.
Over the past eight years,
EU institutions have turned
to investment on numerous
occasions. For those who are
not familiar with the issue,
can you briefly summarise the
EU’s actions and initiatives?
DK: It all started with a debate in the
European Parliament (EP) when Malta
was about to introduce its CBI in 2014. It’s
interesting to note that back then there
was already a programme in Ireland,
which didn’t raise any red flags and was
operating in a similar way to the one
that Malta planned to introduce. And
Cyprus did not interest the EP either:
context did not seem to matter.
In other parts of the world such
as the US and Canada, programmes
were operating, too. But the European
Commission did not think critically of
these programmes. They only started
exercising pressure on Malta as a result
of the commotion in the European
Parliament, which claimed that European
citizenship should not be for sale. So,
one part of the dispute revolves around
the question whether the EU only
wants to accept the blood connection
or whether the EU wants to consider a
more open version on the modalities of
citizenship acquisition. The essence of
EU citizenship is essentially at stake.
“No sane academic voice would argue that the EU has
competence to legislate here, which is why all the documents
that the Commission released so far with the aim of attacking
the investment migration industry are not legislative
proposals, even if they attempt to push the member states,
purely politically, to alter their regulation in a certain way.”
16 - Investment Migration Yearbook 2O23